Couples Counseling New York City

Can You Accept Real Love?

Colette Dowling, LCSW

Author of the following article on couples counseling and real love, NYC psychotherapist Colette Dowling, LCSW, has also written The Cinderella Complex: Women's Hidden Fear of Independence, a best seller in twenty-three languages, and other books on relationhip issues.

The following article on couples counseling and couples therapy is by
NYC psychotherapist Colette Dowling,LCSW. Colette is a therapist with an office in the Flat Iron district of New York City.

Couples counseling or couples therapy is a place to explore our hidden feelings about love. Much of the confusion in our relationships is related to these hidden feeling. When we can recognize the feelings and learn from them, our relationships improve.

I have found, in my couples counseling over the years, that there's a lot of
misunderstanding about what love actually is. Of course it's supposed
to just come naturally, but so often it doesn't. One thing I heark, frequently is "It's not supposed to be this hard," and in a way that'[s true.

Real love is something we worry about finding, but the true
difficulty may be in accepting it when we do. Love can be hard to take. I
know this seems counterintuitive, but if you really think about it, it
could change your whole understanding of love. Couples counseling offers
a safe place to think about such things, and perhaps change forever the
way you feel about love and intimacy.

All of us have been wounded in some way, whether by early love
relationships or later ones. Naturally, we create defenses to avoid
getting hurt again, and unfortunately this includes defenses against
love. Real love, when we've gone so long without, can cause anxiety and
sadness. Love hurts, as the song goes. So unconsciously we may be motivated
to keep it at bay.

Not you?
Well, think again. You might surprise yourself.

As those who enter couples counseling are often surprised to
discover, being truly loved tilts our world and creates anxiety, even panic.
Sometimes it’s easier to settle for the illusion of love--to create
fantasy relationships that may have the outward signs of being the real
thing, but which lack the joys--and the tensions-- of real love.

Or maybe we actually do manage to fall in love but before we know
it, romance fades, dismally. Why does this happen? One reason may be that we can't
tolerate the tension caused by being loved, and the insecurities it
stirs up.

"I thought love is supposed to make us feel secure," you say.

Not
necessarily. The way it can play out is this. Soon after we start
feeling committed to someone we lock love into a compartment far removed
from day-to-day reality. Removed, that is, from the way we actually
behave toward the other. We have the IDEA that we're in love, but our
behaviors don't match the concept.

Think about what this is like when you're on the receiving
end--that is, when someone's giving you the talk of love but not the
behaviors that go along with it. Before long you're wondering where
reality is. It's confusing, even crazy-making. Is it him (or her) or is
it me? Is this real love?

A lack of loving behavior on the part of someone who claims to
love you is definitely a red flag. But you already knew that, right? The
real question is what you're doing in the complicated mish-mash that is
supposed to feel good but in fact has you feeling anxious and confused.

Real love seems to elude us. People enter couples counseling
thinking they can't find it, when the real problem may be that they
can't tolerate it.

Or, they may lack the capacity to truly love another because they
haven’t yet worked out their own identity issues. They want someone to
“complete” them and make them feel whole. Unfortunately it doesn't work
this way. We make a gift of ourselves when we love, and to do that we
have to be complete to begin with.

Partly, this "I need love in order to feel complete" is a
cultural idea. We're told we need a soulmate if we're going to be truly
gratified in life. Without a soulmate our glass will remain forever
half-empty. Life's journey becomes the endless search for romantic
gratification, without which we basically believe we have nothing.
Firestone and Catlett, in their book, Fear of Intimacy, offer us an
eye-opening definition of love. Love "is those behaviors that enhance
the emotional well-being, sense of self, and autonomy of both parties”.

Your goal, in other words, is enhancing the other, not yourself. The
task is in giving yourself enough love to feel good--at which point
you'll actually have something to offer someone else.

Anyone who claims to love will behave in certain predictable ways
toward the object of that love. Their behavior will be appreciative and
respectful of the true nature of the other person. They'll support his
or her personal freedom, rather than try to possess.

Those who say they want love but basically avoid it are in
conflict. They'll need to repair the wounds they've experienced in the
past if they want to be able to tolerate the anxiety that goes along
with mature love.

Creating in oneself the ability to love is a developmental task,
and often mastering it requires help. But the good news is that it can
be accomplished--IF love is something you really want.

NYC psychotherapist Colette Dowling, LCSW, is a licensed social worker
with a masters degree from the Smith College School for Social Work. She
has done advanced training in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis at The
Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy, in New York. Some of her books
are The Cinderella Complex and "You Mean I Don't Have to Feel This
Way?": New Help for Depression, Anxiety and Addiction.

Colette has a private practice in the Flat Iron district of
Manhattan. Her office is convenient to Brooklyn, Hoboken and Jersey
City. She can be reached at 718-594-0201, or at
dowlingcolette@earthlink.net.

To hear Colette speaking about the challenges of starting therapy with someone new, press the audio button.